PART IV.] Dietaries vary greatly in different Jails in different Provinces. 657 



The, chief proximate aUmentary constituents of the dietaries for labouring and under- 

 trial prisoners approved by the Indian Jail Committee of 1864, together with 

 their nutritive values in grains of Nitrogen and Carbon. 



33. These scales of diet appear to have been in force in Lower Bengal for about 

 eighteen years. When compared with the scales of diet which have been adapted 

 from the English Local Prison scales for men of an average weight of 110 lbs, (para- 

 graph 25), it will be found that the amount of nitrogen in each day's food in the scale 

 for Bengalis is precisely the same as is contained in the " adapted " maximum scale, 

 205 grains. The amount of carbon- is greater by over 800 grains. The nitrogen is to 

 the carbon as 1 to 23, and the daily diet contains a little over an ounce of fatty matter. 



34. The diet scale for natives of Behar, and of L^pper India generally, is a con- 

 siderably more liberal one, owing to eight out of the twenty ounces of rice issued to 

 Bengalis being replaced by ten ounces of wheat. If the maximum diet of English 

 Local Prisons be accepted as a standard of sufficiency for men weighing 145 lbs., the 

 Behari scale of diet above referred to should suffice for labouring prisoners of an average 

 weight of 134 lbs. — a weight which comparatively few Beharis attain. The fish form 

 of the dietary does not appear to call for special remark, but it may be mentioned 

 that, as the proportion of albuminates is exceedingly variable in the different kinds of 

 fish, it is not possible to express a definite opinion as to the precise value of this diet 

 as compared with the meat form of it. 



35. It is not clear to what extent this dietary has been taken as a basis for con- 

 structing scales for other provinces, but it is evident that in 1877, when another Indian 

 Jail Committee, or Conference as it was designated, was assembled at Calcutta, it was 

 found that such diversities existed as to the quantity and nature of the food given in 

 the jails of different provinces that it was deemed expedient to suggest the desirability 

 of introducing a new scale of dietary, at least for labouring prisoners. The following 

 resolutions were adopted* : — 



* Report of Indian Jail Conference, 1877, para. 26, page 142. 



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